Book Now or Wait: A Europe Summer Airfare Primer

Always on the lookout for value-oriented travel, Senior Editor Patricia Magaña has trekked throughout the States, Latin America, and Europe. Follow her on Instagram @PatiTravels.

Since joining the editorial crew in 2005, Magaña has pounced on incredible deals to Amsterdam, Madrid, and San Pedro Sula—each for less than $300. Her favorite travel experiences involve discovering street art while meandering a city, chatting up locals, and day drinking.

Her stories have appeared on USA Today, Huffington Post, Yahoo!, TripAdvisor, AirfareWatchdog, and other publications.

Last month I introduced you to our research on when to book peak-season airfare to Europe. This month, you’ll need to seriously consider sealing the deal. Regardless of whether your summer Europe plans include towers, cathedrals, or canals, we’re quickly approaching the season, so you’ll need to start nailing down plans if you want to make this trip happen.

Have you been tracking prices for your itinerary? We have. We’ve now been compiling airfare data for two months and are monitoring the fluctuating rates for high-season travel to many European cities. This is how a few sample routes are stacking up compared to mid-February, when we began evaluating the rates:

New York City > London: Decreased by 15 percent. Continues to trend downward.

New York City > Paris: Decreased by 23 percent. Continues to trend downward.

New York City > Rome: Decreased by 6 percent. Decreased 13 percent since last month.

New York City > Madrid: Increased by 13 percent since mid-February, but cheaper than last month.

New York City > Dublin: Decreased by 28 percent. Substantially trending downward. Now may be the time to book.

Los Angeles > London: Increased by one-tenth of a percent. Barely moving the needle from two months ago, but about three percent less than last month.

Los Angeles > Paris: Increased by three percent since two months ago, but relatively stable since last month.

Chicago > Rome: Decreased by 11 percent since two months ago, but consistent with last month’s rates.

Chicago > Madrid: Decreased by seven percent. The fares were steady for the last two months, but have taken a sudden dip since last week.

Chicago > Dublin: Decreased by 20 percent since two months ago, and relatively consistent with last month.

For the most part, just about all of our researched routes have gotten cheaper since we began running these reports two months ago. The most pronounced reductions, however, are for Dublin and Rome flights, so now is the perfect time to book flights for either destination.

Though there is no exact science, tracking prices based on your itinerary needs is an informed way to find a cheap flight. So continue (or start) running some research of your own, and I’ll chime back in with the third installment next month.

Readers: Are you planning on traveling to Europe this summer? Are you tracking rates? If you’ve traveled to Europe during peak season before, how far in advance did you buy airfare, and were you happy with the price you paid?

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